High value digital content, such as multimedia, audio, and video content must be encrypted to prevent illicit access and usage of the data stream while it is transmitted between devices. Data streams are often transmitted in a lossy environment where data bits may be lost during transmission. Synchronization points in the data stream permit recovery from data loss and processing of the rest of the file. If the data stream is encrypted, then a playback system needs some way to synchronize key information used to decrypt the data stream. However, some standards, such as the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) standards, (See ISO/IEC 13818-1) provide no way to synchronize key information. Any attempt to embed key information into the data stream causes a standard-compliant decoder to fail. Alternatively, maintaining a parallel data stream for key information is complex and unwieldy. If the data stream is encrypted, there is no way to recover once data is lost. On the other hand, if the data stream is not protected with encryption, there is a way to recover. One should not have to choose between encrypting a data stream with no way to recover from data loss or not encrypting.